Water softeners in Cork city. Supplied and fitted.

How hard is the water in Cork?

Cork city's public supply comes from the River Lee, treated at Inniscarra and at the Lee Road plant. The Lee rises in sandstone country to the west, which gives soft water, but it crosses limestone in the valley above the city and picks up calcium and magnesium on the way. Uisce Éireann's figure for Cork city is around 200 mg/L of calcium carbonate, which is the hard band. It is not the savage 350 you get in Meath, but it is enough to coat an immersion element, block a shower head and keep the kettle white, and parts of the county on groundwater run harder again.

What hard water does in a Cork home

• Immersions and hot cylinders. Scale builds on the element and the coil, slower to heat and quicker to fail.
• Electric showers and mixer valves. The heater can and spray plate block, pressure drops and the shower cuts out.
• Combi boilers. Scale on the plate heat exchanger throttles the hot water.
• Dishwashers, washing machines and kettles all scale and go early.

Softener or conditioner at 200 mg/L?

For a family home a softener is still the right answer: it is the only thing that gives you soft water and stops scale completely. In an apartment, or where there is no drain near the mains, a scale conditioner cartridge is the practical alternative, and we fit both. The AquaSilk Midi is the usual fit for the four and five person houses in Douglas, Bishopstown, Ballincollig, Glanmire, Blackrock and Wilton; the Mini suits apartments and couples in the city; the Maxi is for big multi-bathroom houses. The size picker below marks the right one.

Private wells around Cork

Outside the city, towards Carrigaline, Midleton, Macroom, Blarney and north Cork, a lot of houses are on their own borehole. Well water in the county varies a lot, and can carry iron, manganese or bacteria that a softener alone will not deal with. We send a sample to an accredited lab and specify the system off the results. See our well water treatment page.

Getting it fitted in Cork

We fit nationwide with our own technicians, and the AquaSilk itself is built in Mallow, so Cork is home ground for the product. Cork city, Douglas, Ballincollig, Glanmire, Carrigaline, Midleton, Cobh and Blarney are covered on the same run. Order the softener fitted online or ring us, send a photo of your stop valve and the space beside it, and we book a slot. Two to three hours and you have soft water. The fitted price shown is the full price for Cork. For a quote first, use the quote form; the full range is on our main water softener page.